Leigh Lenzeier of Luxemburg was among 31 participants in the Minnesota Agriculture and Rural Leadership (MARL) Program, which recently completed a two-week international study tour to China. The MARL international study tour agenda had the group traveling across the most populated and developed areas of China.
The tour started in eastern China with three days in Beijing, where the group was briefed at the U.S. Embassy by staff of the embassy, Agricultural Trade Office (ATO) and representatives of commodity organizations like the American Soybean Association and U.S. Grains Council. At the embassy, the group spent time with Jim Butterworth, a native of Wisconsin, and agricultural attache for China; Matt Murray, a Michigan native and an economist whose work focuses on issues involving rural China; and Susan Thornton, a Minnesota native from Minneapolis, who works in the political division of the embassy (she briefed the group on Chinese politics).
MARL participants toured Beijing Hormel Foods Ltd., where general manager Rick Szabo explained how Hormel is using aggressive marketing strategies through new product development and reinvigorating established brands in Shanghai and Beijing for the company to establish itself in China. The future may also hold acquisition of local companies as part of the strategy. Kurt Markham of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and director of the MDA Marketing Services division, was in China for other business and his schedule allowed him to join the group for a day. Markham is working to build relationships between Minnesota agriculture and China.
The group then visited a traditional local market, a modern hypermarket, the Beijing Dairy Cattle Center (BDCC), The Great Wall, The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. At the BDCC, Lenzmeier said they were served dinner, which consisted of rice, cold stir fry, cut up fruit with yogurt, “unidentifiable” meat on a stick, barbecue ribs, fish, French fries and drinks, including a hot almond milk product with peach flavoring.
The Shanghai agenda included tours of Cargill Shanghai, the port city from a boat on the Huangpu River, and visits to cultural sites. China was the only country to provide refuge to Jews during the era of Nazi persecution before the beginning of World War II. More than 30,000 settled in Shanghai and established Jewish communities that exist today. Their presence has helped in establishing Shanghai as the banking capital of Asia.
While in the Sichuan Province of central China, the group toured lab facilities of the Sichuan Provincial Department of Agriculture (SPDA) and the National Agricultural Products Quality and Safety Inspection Service. The group also toured the Dijiangyuan irrigation system, a river diversion system more than 2,000 years old, that is the lifeblood of the Sichuan Valley agriculture; the Wheat Institute of Sichuan Agricultural University and its research facilities (a combination of test plots and small laboratories); wheat, vegetable, flower, and hog farms; and a county agricultural/vocational middle and high school. MARL delegation members served as speakers on cooperatives, pork production, and beef production at a symposium hosted by faculty at Sichuan Agricultural University. Small groups of participants visited sites in the province with officials involved in education, medicine, wholesale farm product marketing, city and rural planning, and a local enterprise zone. The group then toured a wholesale import market for fruits and vegetables entering China from around the world and a model farm enterprise zone with aquaculture, flower, and vegetable production, and a feed mill making extensive use of soybean meal.
“For me, during the two weeks of touring China and Hong Kong I observed many different views that our group had with a different culture,” Lenzmeier said. “As a whole, I think this tour will forever change the way the MARL class members think – financially, globally and personally – in our daily lives. To put this trip into perspective in one word: Wow!”
About the MARL Program
The Minnesota Agriculture and Rural Leadership (MARL) Program is a dynamic cohort leadership development program for active adult agricultural and rural leaders from across Minnesota with the mission “To develop the skills of Minnesota agricultural and rural leaders to maximize their impact and effectiveness in local, state, national, and international arenas”.
During 18 months, a cohort group of approximately 30 leaders participate in nine three-day in-state seminars, a one-week national study tour to Washington, D.C., and a two-week international study tour. Two-thirds of the participants are involved in production agriculture and the other one-third are agribusiness people and other types of rural leaders.
Applications for the next MARL class, which will begin in November, are currently available at . The application deadline is March 31. For more information, visit the MARL Web site, , or contact Tim Alcorn, MARL Executive Director, Bellows Academic 250 - Southwest Minnesota State University, 1501 State Street, Marshall, MN 56258.
